Idris

A rant forthcoming, so beware

Why is it that if you have a damage secondary, you're not supposed to use it much? Nobody tells scrappers to take less powers from their secondary, nobody complains when controllers slot their secondary early and spend half their time using it. But dominators, defenders and tankers? Oh noes, it's a gimp, a scranker, an offender, a scrapinator and should come with a health warning!

I think the reason why a lot of people have trouble with their dominators is precisely because they neglect their secondaries. A dominator's secondary supports the primary just as much as scrappers' defense sets do. The secondary eliminates enemies before controls run out and so helps to keep the dominator alive, it has self buffs and utility powers that make the primary better and most of all, it builds Domination. A Dominator who doesn't use the secondary a lot is nothing but a controller with a gimped primary and no secondary. So, if you need to use them anyway, why would you not want them to be as effective as possible?

Another reason to build secondary heavy is the nature of the sets themselves. The control sets tend to have a few standout powers and lots of others that have a marginal use. Often, the difference between taking all of the primary and skipping half of it is not very noticeable. Skipping something like AoE immobilize doesn't make me much worse at control, in most situations it just makes me less dead. Everything has its uses in some situations, but does it have more use than an attack I can use all the time, in every fight? Even if the damage isn't quite corruptor level (and it's not like it's that far behind, dominator melee damage is on same scale as corruptor ranged damage), it does add up.

Don't get me wrong, I see my Dominators' primary role as crowd control. I just happen to think that having a good sortiment of well slotted secondary powers makes me better at it.

I don't think I7 changed much for Katana/Regen TBH. MoG got a little bit worse, Divine Avalanche got even better. I haven't played my scrapper much since I7 but I see no reason to change my build at all, really

I found that my Kat/Regen wasn't too bad in Sirens even with a total PvE build. Accuracy wasn't that hot with only 1 acc slotted in attacks but I still did alright. As long as you're mobile, it's pretty easy to PvP with.

As for builds, there are dozens of Kat/Regen threads if you browse a few pages back on the forum. From Katana, the cookie cutter build is to take everything except Gambler's Cut and the taunt. It gets decent AoE and a melee cone, a couple of really strong single target attacks and one of the best defensive buffs in the game, Divine Avalanche.

[ QUOTE ]

not at all, just referring to the fact that fire and ice only have 10 secs duration..

[/ QUOTE ]

Er, where exactly are you getting these facts, a hero planner? As far as I know, they all have same duration, recharge and magnitude, which scales slightly by level. I can confirm this is true of Plant, Ice and Fire, the rest I haven't tried.

Good point about auto hit. With a build like that you could be one of the best toggle droppers left in the game. Still, I really like Shiver for pvp too.. CE has such a small radius.

I think there's a mistake, we lost our last match so I should be eliminated

[ QUOTE ]

I would agrea with this.. Dom's are very potent killers in PvP.. make sure u get one of the better troller-sets tho.. whith grav, mind or plant u can easily perma hold any non-SR scrapper/stalker (u need 3 hits, and against SRs it might get tricky) and once domination is lit, ur a killing machine in the same level as tanks/brutes/blasters just that u have a good toggle knock power and range

[/ QUOTE ]

What's this about "better troller sets"? Are you saying Mind, Plant and Grav are better sets than Ice and Fire just because the AoE hold is ranged?

I'd wager my fire/fire will in time outdamage quite a few corruptors outside Domination. From what I've seen, high level fire/fire doms absolutely destroy things.

Looking good, if a bit endurance intensive. But that can always be adjusted by slotting if it becomes a problem. The patron armors are surprisingly good but I think I'd rather keep Shiver than Chilling Embrace for PvP purposes.

When I hit 50, I think I'll make a full PvP build and ditch Glacier, Jack Frost and the Mu pet in favor of Chilling Embrace and Medicine pool. Jack seems almost a non factor in zone and team PvP because of his stupid tendency to stay at range shooting the ineffective ice bolt.

Don't forget the -jump and -fly

I'm going to respec the taunt in so if you're short on Regen scrappers, I'd be up for it. Unfortunately no epic hold, though, so you might want to go with someone who has it. Revive doesn't disorient at all anymore, btw.

I think it is. The drain is pretty decent again and it adds a little bit of AoE damage, which elec is otherwise lacking. I have Power Sink from my secondary too and the combo drains most things I end up fighting. I slot it 3 endmod, 3 dam since it has an accuracy bonus.

My fire/fire is level 13 and the control seems desperately bad to me, but then I'm comparing to Ice and Plant, both quite early bloomers. The problem is that Flashfire requires heavy slotting to be useful. On a plus side, everything seems to do a lot of damage and I expect Fiery Embrace at 16 will almost make me a damage dealer, as opposed to a poor blapper with a little more control.

That's just it, there's something fishy going on because while dark and kin look better on paper, in practise rad seems a lot stronger.

Eh, I think I would just pick whatever powers seem most fun since you're not going to get a great overall survivability boost from any of them. MoG is definitely fun, and Revive is another one I think of as QoL power. Gameplaywise, I think CJ would have the biggest effect since you need to reposition yourself all the time to line up the pbAoEs and cones and right now you have no vertical ability at all.

There is none

I used to have Recall Friend for moving Jack around but it felt too cumbersome. Nowadays I tend to let him be a coward and blast at range if he feels like it, occasionally resummoning him if I really want him in melee. He does tend to run in eventually. When I'm soloing I sometimes make an effort and lure him to attack first by using Super Speed, but I rarely solo anyway. Solo spawns are too small, controlling them gives no satisfaction!

Oh, and different strokes about Ice Blast, I guess. I agree it's not great damage but I use it loads. The blasts keep my dom bar up.

And anyway, Medicine heals aren't supposed to be combat heals. That's why they're interruptible.

It looks very nice! Just a few minor things I'd do differently:

- CE doesn't need that many endreds. It's pretty cheap, 1-2 is good. I think you'd be better off putting some endurance reducers in the attacks instead. And I'd forget about the slow enhance there.
- I'd drop either CE or Shiver and get Hasten earlier. Patron powers have some nice stuff you can get at 41
- I don't think hold durations are really worth it in Jack Frost since he uses his hold so little

- I'd probably go for just one acc for Block of Ice (high base accuracy) and 2 for Glacier, and put some recharges there instead.
- I'd consider a range enhancement in Frost Breath. Makes it much easier to get a big spawn in it.

Heh, ice/ice baby is my search comment. My current build is a few posts below but for leveling up I think I would take more attacks early on.

Sounds like you're off to a good start! Meleeing is the way to go with ice/ice and Ice Sword Circle should have that annoying pause at the end removed in the next few weeks.

1) 3 endurance reductions ASAP, then add confusion and maybe slow when you can spare the slots. Personally I think 3 confuses makes most difference and wouldn't bother with the slows since they do nothing to -recharge. You really need the endurance reductions and you still won't be able to run it constantly until you have Stamina 3-slotted with SOs.

2) Sounds viable to me and I believe Cynic does that. I just have Arctic Air though.

Observations in general, hm.. prepare to have some endurance trouble, avoid Frostbite, beware of PUGs doing invincible Arachnos missions. Remember that Domination fills your endurance bar and makes you godly. Be as fast and furious as you can. I think that's about it

There is more synergy between some sets than between others. It's inevitable if you don't want to make them all exactly like each other. In any given situation, there's some primary/secondary combo that performs the best. I have a Katana/Regen and it's defensively a great combo. However most of the time I do not need that defense because my attacks don't grab that kind of aggro on teams. So I don't use DA at all unless needed. It's a great kind of flexibility. But not having to constantly chase runners or having more AoE (even ranged AoE) or more damaging single target attacks would make be more effective under those circumstances. Solo, I would hazard a guess that all scrapper combos can handle Invincible at high levels now unless badly built or played or at disadvantage with the particular enemy faction.

Now, the other sets don't get a similar defensive move as Katana and BS. Yes, it is a very good move. But Katana and BS don't get all the things the other sets have either. They don't disorient, they don't have range, they don't have AoE knockdown/knockback, they don't have a damage aura or a permable damage buff or the kind of AoEs that Spines gets. Defensively however they're clearly the winner. Personally I think the scrapper primaries are reasonably well balanced but like I said I don't think this has anything to do with SR, except that they synergize well which is surely a nice thing for SR.

Please don't assume I'm saying SR doesn't need a buff. I do think it's too power hungry for the effect. There's a thread currently going on at US scrapper forum with some really nice suggestions.

As for BS/Regen being able to turn into something like a pre-Granite Stone tank, there's no way it does that or else pre Granite stone tanks underperform horribly. (I wouldn't know)

What, do you mean that even level minions had lower than 50% base to hit in I5-I6? I find it hard to believe.

I don't really understand why you bring Parry into this. Parry makes all the scrapper secondaries perform much, much better. If you think that's unbalanced, it's really a scrapper primary powerset balance issue and belongs to a different discussion. If Parry is an even better match for SR than the others, then surely that's only good for SR. Flooring the opponents' tohit is not necessary, the other scrapper secondaries don't have that level of damage mitigation either under normal circumstances.

Divine Avalance / Parry needs to be double stacked to achieve that kind of effect. That means it has to hit every time, it is not in effect from the beginning of the fight (so no help with the alpha), and it seriously hampers your DPS. Some people might still call it overpowered but let's not forget the downsides there.

I suggest reading this:

Frequently asked questions about I7 Defence scaler

It has by no means been a nerf.

What really gets me about Spines is Impale. Ranged -fly, -jump and immob with really good damage. Can you say squishy killer?